Pepsi bottler becomes target for drought fury

Company says it's cutting water use

The region's punishing drought has made Pepsi Bottling Ventures in Garner a favorite punching bag.

The company, which does not rank among the Raleigh water system's top five users and which uses less than 1 percent of its water, has been painted as a villain by some residential customers, green-thumb types and even a Durham city councilman -- whose city supplies no water to Pepsi at all.

Pepsi is among the Raleigh system's most visible customers -- in particular because of its business treating municipal water and selling it as Aquafina.

"They are bottling up all the drinks while using our limited source of water," said Erol Brown, 32, a Raleigh electrical engineer.

Ed Buchan, Raleigh's water conservation specialist, said Pepsi is constantly mentioned by landscapers, sprinkler installers, nursery and car wash owners and anyone else who thinks the city's water rules are unfair.

"They're hot about that," said Buchan, who was asked last week at a meeting of hotel and restaurant operators whether Pepsi is shipping tap water out of state.

Durham Councilman Eugene Brown recently took Pepsi-bashing to a new level, calling for a boycott of Pepsi products.

Pepsi Bottling Ventures says the attention isn't fair. The company recently gave Raleigh officials a report about its conservation efforts that begins with the statement: "The reality of PBV's water use is much different than perception."

Pepsi Bottling Ventures makes and distributes more than 4 million gallons of Pepsi beverages in North Carolina each year, including more than 800,000 gallons in Raleigh.

The company, which employs more than 400 people in Garner and at its Raleigh headquarters, says that past and future conservation efforts are expected to save 15 million gallons of water by 2009.

'Doing our part'

"We have been committed to conservation long before we had the water issue this year," Keith Reimer, Pepsi Bottling Ventures CEO, said in an interview. "We track our water usage and are committing to doing our part to conserve."

The report does not say how much water the plant uses daily, and Reimer declined to say. The plant pays the same rate as any other customer in Garner.

The company has ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of equipment that it expects will save up to 10 million gallons of water a year, but such savings will be offset by expansion. Pepsi's goal is to increase the capacity at its plant by 7 percent in 2008, which will require 11 million gallons of additional water.

In calling for a boycott of Pepsi, Brown, the Durham councilman, said the company draws 400,000 gallons a day from Falls Lake and bottles it as Aquafina. Reimer declined to respond to Brown's assertion, other than to note that Pepsi accounts for less than 1 percent of the water distributed by Raleigh, which has averaged about 40.6 million gallons a day over the last month.

Between 25 and 30 percent of the 8.25 billion gallons of bottled water sold in 2006 in the United States was purified water, or treated drinking water from a municipal source, according the International Bottled Water Association.

Reimer said that it's not as though Pepsi is flushing water down a drain. "The water that we use goes to human consumption, keeping people hydrated," he said.

But some say the company should profit less during the crisis.

"I think they're making a huge amount of money off our water," said Michael McCord, who runs American Irrigation Supply, a supplier of sprinkler parts. "I feel very strongly somebody should be going to them and saying, 'Let's restrict some of your income.' "